The Game is On
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Coach Eric Taylor feels as if his wife has just handed him a grenade with a loose pin and said, "Just be sure not to make a false move. Good luck, sugar!" An old story revised and re-posted in January 2013.
1. Chapter 1

**NOTE: **This is an old story that I have just edited as of 1/13/2013. Because I combined chapters in the editing process, the reviews don't match up. I revisited this only because I'm working on a new story in this series, and I wanted to refresh myself to avoid inconsistencies. This piece has not been expanded. All stories in this series are stand alone and you don't have to read one to understand another.

**Chapter One**

"Oh, Dan, honey, you don't have to wash those," Tami said as she came in the kitchen and found Eric's best friend whistling and scrubbing down the dishes.

Dan whisked the circular brush around a plate. A stray spray of water from the sink misted his graying brown hair. "No, no, Tami. You cooked Eden and I a lovely meal, so let me."

Eric, overhearing this as he came in with two more dessert plates and set them on the countertop, said, "Well, I'll do it. I appreciate my wife's cooking too. I'll do the washing up."

"I got it," Dan said. "I'm already here."

Eric muscled him aside and began washing the dishes.

Dan laughed, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Okay, then. Show her how it's done." He walked back out to the table.

Tami followed and sat across from him and next to Eden, Dan's wife and Tami's former colleague at Braemore. Tami had left Braemore to be a guidance counselor at Pemberton High for three reasons: she missed counseling teenagers, she was tired of the college politics, and she wanted greater job security. Whenever they got together, Eden never failed to comment, with affectionate teasing, on her "desertion."

Tonight, Eden said, "Once again today I was reminded why you left Braemore. I'm not even forty and they want to put me out with the dinosaurs." Eden was an expert in Shakespeare and inclined to steer her students in the direction of appreciation for the traditional cannon.

"Oh, you don't have anything to worry about." Tami waved a hand dismissively. "You always have a waiting list for your classes." Not to mention tenure.

"Hasn't stopped them from scaling back on my courses before," Eden grumbled, shifting her simple but elegant beaded bracelet up her dark arm. Dan took the Pictionary game off of the Taboo game and set them side by side. "How did you talk Eric into playing board games?" Eden asked him.

"I promised him I'd bring the good scotch if he played." Dan gestured at the bottle he'd set on the dining room hutch.

"We don't really have any other friends to play with," Eden explained. "We don't really have any other _couple_ friends. It gets hard to find the time, and it's even harder to find people like you two who are intelligent but who aren't snobs, you know?"

"It's not that hard outside of Braemore," Dan mumbled.

"Daniel, except for Eric, all your friends ever talk about is guns. Nothing. But. Guns. It's nice to have other topics of conversation for a change."

"Like football?" asked a reemerging Eric with a smirk. He grabbed the scotch off the hutch, set out glasses for Dan and himself, and poured. "Speaking of guns, I wanted to trade in my hunting rifle, and, Dan, I was – "

Eden glared at her husband, and Dan held up a hand. "Later, my friend. I promised my wife one night without a mention. You at least make a _living_ coaching football. I don't even have that excuse. I just coach the rifle team for kicks."

Eric nodded and smiled. "A'ight."

"You want to try that some time, sugar?" asked Tami as she refilled her wine lass. "One whole night without a mention of football?"

Eric shook his head while Dan unpacked Pictionary.

**/FNL/**

Coach Taylor scribbled harder on the pad.

"Making it darker doesn't help us figure it out," Tami said.

Eric ran the pencil over the same lines again and grumbled. He and Tami had landed on an All Play space on the Pictionary board, so Dan and Eden were guessing too.

"A disgruntled postal employee," Dan suggested. Eden laughed.

"No!" Eric darkened the object he had drawn in the hand of his stick figure. He then drew an arrow pointing at the object.

Tami shook her head. "Hon, it looks kind of vulgar."

Eric violently scratched out the entire picture and then redrew it, without much variation.

Tami shook her head. "A fisherman? Is that supposed to be a fishing pole?"

Eric, with enough force to poke a hole in the paper, drew another arrow to the object the stick figure was holding.

Spontaneously, Dan and Tami shouted, in almost perfect unison, "Baby fish mouth!"

When the two started laughing, Eric furrowed his brow and asked, "What the hell?"

"_When Harry Met Sally_," Tami explained. "It's from _When Harry Met Sally_. You know, the movie? When they were playing Pictionary?"

Eric shook his head.

"I think Eric was at a late practice all eight times I watched that," Tami explained to Dan.

"No. I watched it with you once," Eric insisted. "Is that the one where she has the orgasm in the restaurant?"

"Naturally that's his takeaway," Dan said.

"To be fair," Tami said, "that's _everyone's_ takeaway."

"No, mine's the Roy Rogers, garage sale, wagon wheel coffee table," Eden draped an arm across Dan's shoulder. "Because I can sympathize."

"Eden, my love, that gun cabinet is rustic in the classic sense. It's quite attractive, even apart from the beauty it displays."

"So time's up, hon," Tami said to Eric. "What is that supposed to be?"

Eric shoved the pad away from himself. "It's a hot dog vendor!"

"Is that a hot dog cart?" Dan asked. "I thought it was a mailbox."

"Is that supposed to be a hot dog?" Tami asked. "Well, I did think it was disproportionately thick for that stick figure."

As Dan, Eden, and Tami laughed, Eric tossed the pencil on the table. He tore the sheet roughly off the pad and crumpled it up. Then he finally laughed at himself, one short snort. He tossed the crumpled paper at his wife.

Tami caught it and smiled. "Sorry, hon. You have many, many talents. Drawing just doesn't happen to be one of them."

"I can draw play diagrams."

**/FNL/**

Tami had just called Eric into the kitchen to help her with the corkscrew. She'd gotten it stuck somehow. "Should you really be opening another bottle?" he asked, taking over the efforts. "I mean, Eden only had two glasses of that first bottle and she said she's done drinking."

"The way you've been throwing back scotch, you want to question _me_?" The cork popped from the bottle. "Come on. We've got a game to play."

He pulled her in with one arm for a kiss. "Do I really have to go back out there and play Taboo?"

"Come on, now. Dan's your best friend, and he wants to play."

"No, _Eden_ wants to play. Dan is humoring her because he'd like to get laid tonight."

"Well then do your friend a favor, Eric. Do _yourself_ a favor."

"You mean…Your monthly visitor's gone?"

She snorted. "My monthly visitor? Seriously? That's the euphemism you're going with?" He shrugged and she continued, "He's packing his bags. So not tonight."

Eric sighed.

"But _definitely_ tomorrow night, if you're a good boy and you play nice."

"I'm always a good boy," he insisted. He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't think it's fair that you have this sex bargaining chip. I don't have any chips."

"You have chips," she said, reaching for the open bottle of wine.

"What chips? I have no chips. I am without chips."

"_Please_ usually works pretty well," Tami said as she lifted the bottle from the counter. "Please organize the barbecue. Please help me talk to the boosters. Please watch this football game with me." She gave him that all-too-familiar look, the look that told him he had poked the bear. "What's not fair, really, Eric, is that please _doesn't_ work for me. I can't just say, please play Taboo with your best friend and his wife, who happens to be my best friend, and be nice about it. I have to throw in another chip!"

"Okay," he threw up his hands. "Sorry. I'll play. I like spending time with Dan and Eden. You know I do. I just don't like…party games."

She shook her head and walked back to the dining room.

**/FNL/**

"Kinky," Dan said. It was the first clue out of his mouth.

"Handcuffs," Eden instantly replied.

Tami and Eric glanced at each other, Eric with wide, surprised eyes, and Tami with a suppressed laugh.

Dan slid the next Taboo card over and said, "Professor Laroche thinks mine phallic."

"Gun. Firearm. Rifle," Eden listed in rapid succession. On the last Dan nodded.

Dan turned over the next card and said, "The DVD we put on in the living room yesterday to keep the boys busy while we did the thing we did on the kitchen counter."

Eric looked straight down at the table, his face growing red, while Eden shouted, "Star Wars!"

"That first word," Dan told her, "and then another word it goes with."

"Star…light?" Eden asked.

Dan nodded. It went on like this for a while, Dan and Eden rapidly collecting cards.

"Time's up!" Tami announced.

Dan said, "We earned seven." He glanced at Tami and Eric's pile. "How many did you guys get? Because from here, it looks as if you've gathered…precisely two." He laughed. "What's that? Less than one per decade? You should really know one another better by now."

"We know each other perfectly well," Eric grumbled.

"Eric, friend, if you had let her move onto the next clue instead of trying to convince her that you really did not go someplace on some date, you might have gotten more cards."

Eric shook his head. "We'll catch up. I just need more scotch." He poured himself another and took the plastic card holder that Dan slid his way. He would now be the clue giver for Tami. Eric turned over the first card, and Dan leaned close with the buzzer.

"Oh hell!" Eric complained. "Oh come on now! How in the hell am I supposed to get her to guess that!"

Dan pressed down on the red button of the buzzer so that it let out a long wail. "Sorry, but you can't say the word _guess_."

As Eric was determined to be a handicap, Tami suggested the next game should be boys against girls. She switched seats with Dan so that each woman was now next to her man. Eden took the cardholder, slid up a card, and said to Tami, "The thing you always say you like most about Eric."

"His gorgeous eyes," Tami replied immediately.

"No."

"His muscular arms?"

"No -"

"What?" Creases appeared in Tami's brow. "His _ass_?"

A whistling sound emerged from around the rim of Dan's scotch glass, because he began to laugh just as he was about to sip. Eric, by now too far into his scotch to be much embarrassed, nodded with self-satisfaction.

"No," Eden said with a light smile. "I don't mean something _superficial_."

Tami appeared confused. Eric glanced across the table at Dan and with an unsteady flourish of his hands outlined his own form. "She only cares about my body," he said with a mock expression of hurt. "I'm just a hunk of meat to her."

Tami put a hand on Eric's shoulder and shoved. He leaned slightly to his left and smiled. "His big heart?" she guessed.

"Yes. Heart," Eden agreed. "The word was heart."

When time was up, Eric said, "You ladies got a measly two."

Eden languidly pushed the cardholder toward Eric. "Let's see you do better, Coach Taylor."

Tami leaned close to her husband, her head on his shoulder, and readied the buzzer. Eden reached forward and turned over the timer.

"Ingrid Harrison," Eric said.

"Breasts," Dan answered instantly.

Tami tore her head off of Eric's shoulder and smacked him on the back of his head. "_Who_ is Ingrid Harrison?" she demanded.

"Dan said it," Eric defended himself. "Not me!"

Eden was giving her husband an accusatory look. Dan shot her an apologetic, but unworried, smile. "She's just this range safety officer at the place where I take Eric shooting," he said. "Don't hold the association against us. Trust me. If you saw her, it would be your association too." In response to Eden's continued gaze, he said, "You should let me buy that land I told you about. Then I could build my _own_ outdoor range and not have to distracted by Ingrid."

"You can just borrow Tom's land for that, Daniel. And I'm sure you'll still see Ingrid when it's raining and you want to shoot inside."

"Another word for that word you just said," Eric said loudly, as he watched the sands eaten away.

"Chest?" Dan ventured.

"Yes. Then put another word in front of that word that indicates wealth."

"Money chest?" Dan asked, then, "Treasure chest!"

Eric nodded and turned over another card. Eric was still studying the card he had just turned over. "I…hmmm…." He squinted at the words. "I don't know how to…" Eric scratched his head. "Damn, I can't say…" Dan pointed to the nearly finished timer. "Oh, I know!" Eric exclaimed. "Tami is mine!"

"Time's up!" Tami announced triumphantly.

Eric tossed the card on the table. "It was wife," he muttered.

Dan asked levelly, "And it took you almost the entire duration of the timer to recall that Tami is yours?"

"He just takes me for granted," Tami said, sliding the card holder away from him. "Doesn't even think of me. I'm the last thing that comes to his mind."

"Well," Eric shot back, "at least when you ask me what my favorite thing about you is, the first three things that come to my mind aren't _all_ body parts."

"Oh yeah," Tami asked, straightening her back and turning to her husband, "what _are _the first three things?"

"Uh...ummm..."

"Eric, you might want to avert your eyes," Dan suggested.

"Don't be a traitor now," Eric said, dragging his eyes from where they had instinctively fallen and waving a finger at his friend. "You're on my side."

"Three things, Eric," Tami repeated.

"Your fantastic cooking," he said confidently. "Your amazin' back rubs. The way you can organize barbecues for the team and stay on top of everything. "

"Oh, I see," she drawled slowly, "so the first three things that come to mind are all ways I can _serve_ you."

Dan's tongue edged out from between his teeth. He shook his head. "You stepped right into that one, my friend." He rested his fingertips on Eden's shoulder, "My love, I think this might be a good time for us to make our exit."

**/FNL/**

After Dan and Eden had left, while Eric and Tami were cleaning up the glasses and bottles, Tami asked, "Do you think they actually use handcuffs? Or do you think that was just some random word association? I mean, the second, the very second, he said kinky, she said handcuffs."

Eric hung a hand-dried wine glass below the light wood wine rack that was built into the wall next to a cabinet. It was one of the things Tami had loved about the kitchen, but he had been forced to go out and buy new, matching wine glasses to fill it up, because Tami didn't want all the random shapes and sizes of glasses they had acquired over the years to hang haphazardly together. She was also constantly buying bottles of wine now because she didn't like empty holes in the rack.

"I don't know, Tami. I don't want to talk about Dan and Eden's exciting sex life."

"Exciting? You think handcuffs are exciting?"

"I didn't say that!" He picked up another glass she had just washed and began drying it.

"Are you dissatisfied with our sex life, hon?" she teased. "Are you getting bored?"

He hung the second glass beneath the rack. He avoided her eyes. He didn't think there was any way he could answer that question without getting himself in some measure of trouble, so he decided to treat it as a hypothetical to which the answer was an obvious no.

Now she wasn't teasing. "Sugar, we promised we'd tell each other if we were ever unhappy about anything. So I'm asking you directly - are you unhappy with the quality of our sex life?"

"No." He slid the hand towel into the rack that hung from one of the cabinet doors. "I think I hear Gracie calling us. I better check on her."

**/FNL/**

Eden sat with her legs stretched out across the couch, her feet up in Dan's lap, her laptop open, typing up a multi-paragraph-long response to one of her student's papers. A stack of other papers rested on the coffee table, weighed down by a bright yellow nerf gun. Their twin, first grade boys were sound asleep when they got home to relieve the babysitter.

"Did you see Eric's face when you said kinky and I said handcuffs?" she asked her husband.

He muted the History Channel show he'd been watching, _Top Shot_. "It was rather amusing, wasn't it? I think he thought we really use them."

"I know, but it was just a natural clue to give. After all, isn't handcuffs the first word that comes to mind for just about anyone when the word kinky is used?"

"I would think so." He laughed a little. "And the way he blushed when I mentioned doing that thing on the kitchen counter…"

"Yes, from his expression, I don't think he would have guessed the thing we were doing was putting together a lego model. I don't know why we always end up doing that instead of the kids." She smiled. "But who really has sex on the kitchen counter with the kids in the _next_ room? Besides, our heights would be all off."

Dan unmuted the show. "I could do that," he said.

"If you stood on your tip toes. Those are high counters."

He gestured to the TV. "No, I mean _that_."

She glanced at the _Top Shot_ show. "You could do the shooting accurately. I don't think you could run up that hill in under fifteen seconds."

"I could if I was ten years younger. Do you think I could beat Eric in a race?"

"I don't know, darling," she said as she resumed typing. "Why don't you two have that pissing match when we invite them over for dinner next weekend?"

**/FNL/**

Eric was in bed reading when Tami came out of the master bathroom in her nighttime sweats and slid under the covers next to him. He turned a page and said, "This biography is more interesting than I expected it to be."

"Eric, you need to answer me. Are you unhappy with the quality of our sex life?"

"No! Now would you just drop it? I don't need handcuffs and kitchen counters and whatever the hell else Dan and Eden are into." He slammed the book shut.

"So you don't need a lot of creative, spontaneous sex?"

"I'm satisfied, Tami. Besides, we always have creative, spontaneous sex on New Year's Eve. Right on the living room floor. In front of the Christmas tree."

She nodded. "If hours of planning and preparation and a jingle bell alarm on Gracie's door count as _spontaneous_."

"Okay, it's not spontaneous. But it's great," he said. He put the book on the nightstand.

"So you aren't dissatisfied?" she asked again. "There's nothing you'd change?"

"Well, I wouldn't complain if the frequency increased. Or if you wore your lingerie to bed more often."

"So just the standing complaint. Nothing else I don't know about?"

"No. Nothing else." He leaned over and flicked off the lamp. "G'night, babe. I love you."

"I love you too."

Eric settled down under the covers on his back and crossed his arms over his stomach. Tami turned onto her side. Just as he was preparing to sleep, his eyes suddenly shot open, adjusted to the darkness, and gazed at the ceiling. "Wait," he said. "Wait. Are _you _suggesting _you're _not satisfied with our sex life?"

She didn't answer.

"Tami?" He turned on his side. "Tami?"

"I'm happy with our sex life," she said. She rolled over to face him. "You're a considerate lover. You're romantic, and you're _very _attractive." He was starting to smile when she continued, "It's just...you're pretty conventional, hon."

His smile faltered and his lips formed a thin line. "Conventional?"

"The living room floor once a year - that's about as risqué as you get."

"That's not true. We've done it in the shower." Although not that often. It was hard for both to stay under the spray simultaneously, and, since he was a gentleman after all, he was the one who always ended up in the cold. "And on the football field," he hastened to add.

"The football field? When have we _ever _had sex on the football field? I don't know who that woman was, Eric, but she wasn't me."

"I mean before I turned it into the football field. When we were looking for a neutral field for the game with Dillon, remember - "

"The pasture? Okay. I wasn't thinking of that when you said the football field."

"That was fun, wasn't it?" he asked.

"Until that cow came up and mooed and spooked you." She chuckled. "Then it was just funny." She patted his hand. "I'm perfectly content, hon. I'm just saying you tend to be a little conventional. All and all, that's not a bad thing from my perspective, personally, but I wouldn't _mind _if you mixed it up just a little more often."

"Mixed it up? What do you mean? What do you _want_? Do _you _want handcuffs?"

"No!" She jerked her hand away from his. "Hell no!"

"Then what?"

She rolled over again. "I don't know. Maybe I'd like you to surprise me."

"Surprise you? When? With what?"

"Well, if I told you that, it wouldn't be a surprise. Just think of something and surprise me. Not _tonight_. Just some time. G'night, hon."

"G'night," he muttered, but he didn't go to sleep. He remained lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He felt as if she'd just handed him a grenade with a loose pin and said, "Just be sure not to make a false move. Good luck, sugar!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

When Eric entered the bar, he found his friend, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, "Let's sit somewhere else."

Dan dismounted his bar stool, took his pint of beer, and followed Coach Taylor to a far booth in a darkened corner of the bar. "Oh, so you really _do _want to talk," Dan said as he slid in and leaned back against the dark brown wood of the booth. "I thought you were just rescuing me from the twins for an evening."

When Eric had his own drink, he said, "I have to ask you something embarrassing. Don't make it worse for me than it's already gonna be."

Dan smirked. "This promises to be good." In response to Eric's surly expression, he sat up a little and waved his hand. "Fine. I promise. No ridicule."

Eric rubbed his eyes and put his hand down on the table, letting it fall loosely around his beer bottle. "You're more experienced than I am."

"At what? Target shooting?"

"No...I mean...with women."

Dan laughed. "I don't know about that. You were a football player in high school. I was a math geek."

"Yeah, but I've been married over half my life now, and you had that time between your first and second marriage… before you were super dad."

"You mean back when I was still rich and passably attractive?"

"You know what I mean. You saw some women. I only had the one girlfriend before Tami."

Dan rubbed his forehead. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, I just…you know, I started dating Tami when I was 17. Before her, I had this one girl. So it was just her and then Tami. That's it."

Dan turned his pint glass by the rim. "I just assumed you sowed all your wild oats in high school."

"Well I guess my oats were pretty tame."

Dan laughed. "I never did understand that expression." He looked at Eric quizzically. "You aren't thinking about sowing those oats now, are you? You've got a good thing with Tami. Don't you dare - "

"- Of course not!"

"So…then…what? You're nearing the midpoint of your life and regretting that you didn't seize the opportunity to sleep with more girls when they were knocking down your door? Trust me. Casual sex isn't all it's cracked up to be. The best sex I ever had with a woman I hardly knew didn't come anywhere close to the best sex I ever had with a woman I loved."

"No, it's not that."

Dan shook his head and slid his now empty pint glass to the side of the table. "Then you just come out and ask me the embarrassing question, because I can't guess what your issue is."

"If a woman said to you she wanted you to surprise her - " Coach Taylor grew suddenly silent as a waiter approached. Dan ordered a shot of scotch but Eric had barely touched his beer.

"I'd buy her flowers on a random day," Dan said as the waiter moved on to the next table. "It's clichéd, but it seems to work."

"No, I don't mean that. What if a woman said she wanted you to surprise her sexually. Sometime. Just do something. Something she doesn't expect."

"Surprise her. Sometime. With something."

Eric nodded.

"That's the entire quantity of information this hypothetical woman offered you?'

Eric nodded again.

Dan laughed. "Hmmm. That's rather as if she gave you a grenade with a loose pin and told you not to make a false move."

"No shit!" Eric lowered his voice after his first exclamation of agreement. "That was exactly the metaphor that came to my mind."

"As my lovely and informative wife would tell you, it's a simile, actually, not a metaphor, but - " Dan waved his hand and smiled expectantly " - _do_ continue."

Eric became tensely silent as the waiter returned and slid Dan his scotch. It had been a week since Tami had told him she "wouldn't mind" if he "mixed it up," and they'd had sex twice, but he hadn't tried anything out of the ordinary, not yet. She'd been satisfied, he thought, at least she'd _sounded_ satisfied, and she had eased into a contented cuddle after. She hadn't mentioned the conversation again, and he hadn't wanted to broach the subject himself, though it had been consuming his thoughts, whenever he wasn't concentrating on teaching or planning for the next football season. Her words, "just surprise me sometime," were the first thing he thought about when he woke up in the morning and the last thing he thought about when he went to bed.

"I have no idea what she wants," Eric admitted as Dan reached for the new drink. "We talk all the time. About everything. Whether I want to or not. But she's _never_ said she wanted anything dramatically different before. And when I asked her what she meant…she wouldn't give me any more information. So I was just wondering if you had any general suggestions...you know...what most women do or don't like...oh Jesus, I can't believe I'm asking you this."

Dan leaned close to his friend. "Well, let me ask you an embarrassing question. This isn't kissing and telling, mind you. This is a private, closed-door strategy meeting."

Eric nodded and apprehensively awaited Dan's inquiry.

"Who initiates most of the time?"

"Me." Eric's tone was business-like. If he treated this as a strategy meeting, as Dan had suggested, maybe it wouldn't be quite so mortifying.

"And how do you do that?"

Now that was a bit too personal, but Eric was truly at a loss for ideas, and he needed all the help he could get, so he answered, "Well, I hint. Or I flatter. Or I light candles and put on music or something. And then she either rebuffs me or gives me the green light."

"You never just...walk in the door and throw her up on the countertop and start unbuckling your belt."

"Hell no. I mean, for one thing, Gracie's always around. For another, Tami doesn't take well to that. Just going straight for it like that. She likes to be wooed first."

Dan shrugged. "I don't know. Sometimes women find that sexy."

Eric shook his head. "I don't think..." He paused in his head shaking. "I mean...she can't possibly want me just to tackle her."

"Well, I wasn't suggesting a _tackle_, Eric. You know, but...she clearly likes watching you coach. That boldness - that assertiveness and command you show on the field - maybe she wants to see more of that in the bedroom."

"Yeah...I don't know..."

"Okay, what about work sex? A lot of women like office sex."

"A _lot _of women?" Eric had tilted his beer bottle to sip it, but now he lowered it to the table again. "What, in all those pornos you watch while you're babysitting the kids?"

"You can't babysit your own children, Eric. I'm _raising_ them. I'm not _babysitting_ them."

"Sorry. Don't get touchy. I know that. It was a slip of the tongue. You sound like Tami."

"But, seriously," Dan continued, "some women really find that exciting. Especially the strong, competent, professional types."

"Office sex is out of the question. We work in a _school_. Besides the potential scandal, there's only five minutes between classes."

"I'm sure you have a lunch break and a free period and there's always before and after school."

"Drop that idea."

"You could at least make out. You know, give her something to think about until you get home." Dan was lifting glass when he stopped and held it forward. "What about role playing? For women, I do believe police men, cowboys, and vampires top the list. They've got a party store a couple miles from here. All sorts of adult costumes."

"Uh...no." Eric shook his head. "I don't…I'm a really bad actor."

"Well, I don't know, my friend. You've shot down everything I've suggested. Better to disappoint than to offend, you think. I don't blame you. You want to play it safe. You're conventional."

"I'm not conventional! I'm happy to do whatever she wants, I just don't _know_ what she wants. I don't understand why she didn't just tell me directly."

"She's probably embarrassed to ask," Dan speculated.

"Tami is _not_ the shy, blushing type."

"No," Dan replied. "No, she isn't, normally, but if she thinks you're a little conventional - "

"I'm not conventional!"

" – then she may be reluctant to come out and ask for something that you might find kinky, especially if this is a new interest for her. Maybe she's just hoping you'll stumble on it. You know, women don't like to be rebuffed either. It's not just us."

Eric was shaking his head. "But she gave me nothin' to go on! I asked _directly_, and all she would say was _I don't know. Surprise me_."

"That sounds like she _does_ know and she doesn't want to say."

"But how could I possibly guess? I mean the only thing I know for sure she doesn't want is handcuffs."

"Now how do you know that?" Dan asked.

"Because when I said do you want handcuffs, she said, _hell no_!" Eric took a sip of his beer.

"Hell no?"

"Hell no," Eric echoed.

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much." Dan smiled. "That's actually a misuse of that line. In Shakespeare's time, protest meant swear to, not deny, so really- "

"- Dan, no Shakespeare. I hear that enough from your wife."

"When you asked her if she wanted handcuffs, did you say," Dan asked, with a deep, suggestive tone, "Do you want handcuffs?" Or did you say, he switched to a shocked voice: "Do _you_ want handcuffs ? ! ?"

"Uh…more like the second," Eric admitted.

"Mhmm huh."

"No." Eric shook his head. "No, she said _hell_ no."

"Yeah, after you said, 'You're not so kinky and weird that you would want handcuffs are you?"

"I did _not_ say that," Eric insisted.

"Yeah. That's pretty much what you said."

Eric shook his head again. "She doesn't want handcuffs. She said no. No means no. Didn't they teach you that at Harvard? Didn't they sit you down in a freshman seminar and tell you _no means no_ about six thousand times? Or do they just do that in the state colleges?"

Dan laughed. "Look, you may be right. Obviously you know your wife well. You've been married to her forever. But a woman can change her mind, her interests, her…and I'm certainly not suggesting you just slap them on her. But you know, you could lay them to the side. See if she goes for them. Of course, you realize, it may not be _her_ she wants them used on."

"I'm beginning to regret asking for your advice."

Dan bent his head over his scotch and laughed into it. He looked back at Eric. "Well, if you need some privacy to execute your game plan, Eden and I would be happy to keep Gracie for a day or a night or even a weekend. We'd be happy to do that."

"Yeah?"

The waiter came and set down two mugs of beer. "We didn't order these," Eric said.

"No, they're from them," the waiter pointed diagonally across the way to a table where two, thirty-something, vaguely attractive women sat. The women waved and smiled.

"We can't," Eric said, pushing the beer back toward the waiter,

"Come on, Eric, now," Dan said, raising the mug he'd just been given and toasting the women across the distance, "Just toast and smile."

"Dan, you're married," Eric said as the waiter disappeared.

"Well I'm just toasting them, Eric. I'm not fucking them."

Eric shook his head.

"Besides, both beers were probably meant for you. So don't be rude. Toast them."

Eric picked up his mug, turned sideways, and raised the bottle in the direction of the women, while simultaneously pointing to his wedding ring. The women shook their heads and returned to their own conversation.

"Damn, Eric. You act like that's never happened to you before."

"Well…it hasn't…I mean…"

"Really?" Dan's disbelief was apparent.

"Well, Dillon was a small town. Everyone knew I was happily married."

"It's flattering though, isn't it? Come on. Admit it. You like the attention."

"I don't actually."

"Yeah," Dan said, chuckling and raising his beer. "That's why you played football in high school and college. That's why you coach it now. Because you _love_ anonymity."

Eric glanced, very briefly, toward the women. He took a sip of the beer he'd been delivered, the beer he would later insist on paying for himself. "Hmmm…" he murmured, taking another generous sip. "Well, they have good taste. And not just in beer."

**/FNL/ **

When Eric got home, Tami had forgotten to leave the porch light on. Or perhaps she hadn't forgotten; perhaps she was irritated that he was home over an hour later than he had originally said he would be. He had texted her to say he was running late, that he was staying for another drink with Dan, but she hadn't replied. In the faint haze of the car headlights, which would switch themselves off in another minute, Eric struggled to fit his key in the lock.

When he got inside, the lights were out. From Gracie's open doorway alone came the dim glow of a night light. He stopped in her room and gave her a stealth kiss on the forehead. He looked down at her before he left, thinking that he was lucky that, even now, she still liked to cuddle with her daddy, and regretting that it probably wouldn't last another year. It hit him suddenly that this was his last child, and she was growing up.

Eric undressed in the darkness down to his white T-shirt and plaid boxers and crawled carefully and quietly into bed next to Tami. She turned almost instantly and rested her head on his chest, draped a leg over both of his, and settled in.

"Sorry I'm late," he said. "I texted you."

"I know."

"I thought maybe you were mad. You didn't leave the porch light on."

"It's burned out. I told you that last week. You said you'd replace the bulb."

"Oh yeah. I forgot."

"I was just too busy dealing with Gracie at the moment to reply. She had a nightmare. Did you and Dan have fun?" He murmured a sort of yes. "What did you talk about?"

"Uh... stuff."

She yawned. "What kind of stuff?"

"Uh…politics."

He felt, rather than heard, her chuckle. Her breath was warm against his shirt. "You two are probably the two most apolitical men I know. What did you _really_ talk about?"

"Just…a lot of stuff. Some women bought us drinks." The last he said hastily, partly to get her to stop asking about his conversation with Dan, and partly as a sort of quick confession.

She raised her head and looked down at him, but they couldn't see each other well in the darkness. "Did you accept them?"

"No. Yes. I mean no. We drank them, but we paid for them."

"Mhmmm…" she murmured, and put her head back down. "Were they pretty?"

"No, they were both just beers. I guess the amber color was kind of pretty."

She kissed his shoulder and laughed. "Well played."

"You know I have eyes for only you."

"I doubt that, but I know you're a loving and faithful husband, and I'm sorry if you've brought home some excess energy, because I'm exhausted. I was asleep when you came in."

"It a'ight. I'm pretty tired myself." It was true. He'd almost fallen asleep on the way home. He wasn't used to staying out late anymore. In Phili, unlike in Dillon, the games were mostly in the afternoon. They didn't have many of those massive lights, and it was a special game indeed that took place on Friday night. With a young daughter at home, and nowhere to go, he'd gotten used to an early bedtime.

"I love you, babe." He kissed the top of her head. "G'night."

"I love you too," she yawned. "Niiiiiite."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"Mrs. Taylor!" Coach Taylor called after his wife in the hall. She stopped and turned and, when he had caught up with her, they stepped into recess between two long lines of lockers and stood in front of the doorway to a supply closet. There was one minute left until the bell rang, but Coach Taylor's next period was his planning period, so he didn't have to make it to a class. Tami probably had kids waiting for her at her office already. She'd proven to be a popular counselor – no surprise to Eric.

"How has your day been?" he asked.

"Okay. Is your new class still going well?"

He'd recently been asked to fill a temporary vacancy by teaching a sociology elective in lieu of one of his multiple planning (football planning, of course) periods. All of the other teachers were already tapped out when it came to classes, so he seemed the only choice, and his temporary assignment had been a great source of amusement for Tami, especially since sociology had been one of her two majors in college.

"I'm doin' fine, believe it or not," he answered. "I know how to regurgitate a text book." He put both hands on his hips and surveyed the passing teenagers in the hall while she spoke to him. He often talked to her that way in the school hallways, without looking at her. It was his way of maintaining decorum. "Got essay tests to grade tonight though." When the last teenager had filtered away and faded out of sight, he reached back and jiggled the knob of the supply closet and then pushed the door open. "Can I have a quick, private word with you?"

"In the supply closet?"

"Well..uh…actually, and this is important for you to know since you're the counselor - I'm concerned one of my students might have hidden some pot in there. I've heard rumors. Want to check with me? "

Tami was half shaking her head as she stepped inside and flicked on the light. He followed her in and shut and locked the door behind them. He swirled her around and kissed her passionately.

"Eric!"

He knew it definitely was not the sort of _Eric!_ he got when she was moaning in bed, but he wasn't sure if it was a merely surprised "Eric!" or a scolding "Eric!" So he decided just to stick with the game plan. "Shhh!" He said, wrapping his arms around her waist. He slid his hands down and over her tight-fitting skirt, squeezed, and kissed her again, more deeply. He leaned back against the door with a thud and pulled her on top of himself. His hands slid up to the small of her back and began tugging out her shirt.

She pushed him away. "_What _are you doing?"

He swallowed. Now that most decidedly was not a surprised "What are you doing?" That was an _annoyed_ "What are you doing?"

"I...I…" Eric stammered, "…just...wanted to give you something to think about for the rest of the day. Until we get home."

"To think about? Sweetheart, all I can think about is the fact that I've lectured girls about not making out in the supply closet before. I've implied its degrading."

She talked to him about work often, but he didn't recall her ever making any specific mention of the supply closet. Now that he thought of it, however, maybe she _had_ said something once, back in Dillon…

He'd chosen the spot because it was private, sure to be free of video cameras, and, unlike their offices, not likely to be visited by students. He stood up straight. His jaw tightened. "So you feel like I just degraded you?"

"Hon, no." She stepped close to him and put a hand on his check. "I just don't know _what_ you were thinking. This is _so_ unlike you. We're at work, babe."

He looked down.

"You just surprised me is all," she said.

He brought his eyes back up to hers. They were clouded now not by embarrassment but by irritation. "Well, you _told_ me to surprise you!"

She took her hand away. "What? When? "

"In bed. A week and a half ago."

She appeared confused.

"After that Taboo game with Dan and Eden," he reminded her. "You _told_ me you wanted me to surprise you."

"I didn't mean like this!" She tucked back in her shirt. "I love you, hon. I do. And I enjoy making out with you. Just don't ever take me to the supply closet again. It smells like Lysol in here." She reached for the knob.

"Well what the hell do you want? Why don't you just _tell_ me? This is agony."

Her hand fell away from the knob. "What's agony?"

"Trying to figure out how you want me to surprise you. What's going to excite you without offending you. This has been eating at me for days!"

"Oh, hon..."

He turned his face away when she tried to touch his cheek again in that sympathetic way of hers. She dropped her hand to her hip. "I'm sorry. When I said surprise me, I just meant...you know..._while_ we're having sex," she was whispering now, even though they were alone behind a closed door, "try saying something different than you normally say. Try a new position or one we haven't tried in a while. Or do a big romantic set up, the way you do on New Year's Eve, but do it on a day I don't expect it. Mix it up a little. That's _all _I meant. I didn't mean _anything _like this."

He turned his face back to hers. "Really? That's _it_?"

"Yes! And I wouldn't mind if, during," she broke eye contact for a moment, "you talked dirty more often." She met his eyes again. "Not all the time, certainly. Most of the time I want your sweet nothings. But every third or fourth time maybe. Lately it seems you only do it once in a blue moon."

That was because talking dirty was a little like walking a tight rope with her. Sometimes he hit the rope perfectly, and sometimes he slipped and wobbled a little but kept on going, and sometimes he just plain plummeted and the show was over. He wished she would give him a list of acceptable and unacceptable words and phrases. Naturally he had been building his own through trial and error over the years, but sometimes it seemed as if she randomly moved things between the yes and no columns.

"A'ight," he said. "I think I can manage that. You realize you could have given me this information a week and a half ago?"

"Hon, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'd _completely _forgotten I even said that. I had no idea you were worrying about this."

"How could you not know that if you said something like that to me I would be – "

"I'm sorry, hon. I really just didn't think about it. It was never a big deal to me. It's just the whole Taboo game kind of reminded me that we could use a little more variety. We've kind of fallen into a routine lately. The same days of the week, the same few positions, the same words and phrases, the same room of the house…I just felt we should mix it up a little. I thought you knew what I meant. I didn't mean to make you feel like I needed some wild…that I don't enjoy…that you had to do some…" She gestured around the supply closet. "I had no idea you were thinking of how to jump me at school."

"I take it this means you have no interest in handcuffs either."

"Eric, I believe I told you hell no!"

"And you meant that?"

"Have you ever known me _not_ to mean hell no when I say hell no?"

Eric shook his head slowly. He stepped out of her way as she reached again for the door. She peered out into the hallway. "Coast is clear," she said, and smoothed her skirt before opening the door all the way and stepping out. "Aren't you coming?"

"I'll be along," he muttered.

"Love you, hon," she said. Her smile was all at once affectionate, forgiving, disbelieving, and just a little mocking. There was a little bit of _I'm sorry_ in the smile too, but it was the mocking part he noticed most.

He smacked the door shut when he saw her go. He let out an exasperated grunt and kicked over a mop.

A few of minutes later, after Eric had calmed himself and picked up the mop, he emerged from the closet. As he did so, he was startled by a passing chemistry teacher who eyed him suspiciously.

"Mr. Mackey," Eric said, nodding to him as he closed the closet door. He didn't usually call teachers Mr. and Ms. unless he was in front of students, but he still didn't know this particular teacher's first name. The guy was rarely in the teacher's lounge, and he'd never heard another teacher call him by his first name.

Mr. Mackey glanced at the supply closet door and then glanced back at Eric. "Coach Taylor," he said thinly.

Eric pointed to the door. "I was just checking for pot. I heard the kids hide it in there."

"No," Mr. Mackey replied. "They hide it one of the ceiling panels in the second floor bathroom above the vocational wing. Why? Do you want some?"

"No! Of course I don't."

"Of course not," Mr. Mackey said hastily. "Neither do I. Of course." He retreated down the hall.

**/FNL/ **

When he was back in his office, Eric called Dan and said, "You give fucking horrible advice."

There was the sound of a crackle and a shift in volume. "Whoa. I'm with the boys. You were on speaker. I wasn't exactly expecting an f-bomb from _you_." Dan homeschooled his twins to be able to meet Eden's rigorous academic expectations for them while still allowing them enough play time. "Are you somewhere where your students can't hear you?"

"I'm in my office. It's my free period."

Dan's voice turned suddenly authoritative. "Playroom, five minutes."

"Yes! Fucking awesome!" exclaimed one of the boys

Dan sighed. "Well at least Othello can quickly pick up on new vocabulary and apply it in context. So I take it you finally made your move on Tami and it proved less than successful?"

"Yeah, to say the least."

"Well, is there anything else you called to say?" Dan asked. "Because I have to finish up the day's work with O and Cory so they can be ready to play when the neighbor kids get home from school. We got a late start today. Slept in a bit."

Eric leaned back in his chair and shifted the phone to his left ear. He put his feet up on his desk. He half watched last season's game film playing out on the TV to the right of his desk and continued his conversation with Dan. "Yeah, there is somethin' else. I also wanted to ask-can I drop Gracie off at your house Friday afternoon for a sleep over?" It wasn't football season yet, so he didn't have to prepare for a game. "We'll pick her up Saturday evening."

Eric was determined to make up for the supply closet mishap. He'd surprise Tami, but romantically. And then when the courtship finally culminated in sex, he'd "mix it up."

"Tomorrow Friday?" Dan asked.

"Yeah."

"Nothing like 24-hour notice, Eric. But we can wing it."

Something on the TV caught Coach Taylor's eye. He paused the game film. "Listen, I really appreciate it, because I have got to make up for that supply closet thing." Eric shut his eyes suddenly. He hadn't meant to let that slip out. Maybe, if he was lucky, Dan wouldn't pick up on it.

There was a long pause at the other end of the line and then Dan's voice, raised with a note of merriment, "Supply closet?"

"Uh…."

"Casanova, did you take your wife in the _supply closet_? To make out?"

"Uh…"

There came a mocking laugh from Dan. His laughter died down into a chuckle. "Why didn't you just do it in her office?"

"Students are always knocking on the door."

"Then why not _your_ office?"

"My lock's broken. They haven't repaired it yet. Takes weeks to get repair requests filled around here. These city schools are -"

" – Still, the _supply_ closet? Now you _cannot_ blame that on me. I never suggested any such thing."

Eric took his feet off his desk and leaned an arm on it. "Well, it's not just that. It would have been a flop anywhere. She was talking about something completely different. I way overthought it. And I shouldn't have. Because she's my wife. And I know her. But the way she said it…what she said…what was I supposed to think?"

"Well at least you got it sorted out. Listen, Saturday morning I was going to take the boys out to a farm of a friend of mine outside Phili and let them do some BB gun shooting with cans and such. How do you feel about that? If we took Gracie?"

"Uh…well, I mean…she's a little young."

"Only a couple months younger than O and Cory."

"Yeah, but she hasn't ever…well, okay. It'd be good for Gracie to learn gun safety anyway and I know you'd make a point of that. Just don't mention it to Tami. She might freak out about it."

"It's just a BB gun."

"I know, but better to ask forgiveness than permission when it comes to her."

"I don't know if that's the wisest policy, Eric."

"I'm done taking marriage advice from you."

"Fair enough," Dan conceded.

"Besides, I _can't_ ask her permission without spoiling the surprise. I don't want her to know Gracie's going to be out of the house Friday night."

After saying goodbye, Eric returned the phone to its cradle. He leaned forward and looked more closely at the paused image on the TV. "Can't believe I didn't see that before," he muttered. He made a note and then turned off the TV. It had been a useful free period. He'd discovered a little something that would serve him well in the first game next season, and his plan to seduce his wife was in motion.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

The alarm hadn't gone off, but Tami was awake. She hated to think she was wasting even a moment of potential slumber, but it was as if her internal alarm had gone off. She hoped it wasn't too early. She glanced at the clock, bolted upright, and turned to wake Eric, but the bed beside her was empty. There was the sound of water in the master bathroom switching off, and then he stepped out, fully dressed and cleanly shaven.

"Why didn't you wake me?" she asked. "I overslept fifteen minutes. Why didn't the alarm go off?"

"Because I turned it off, babe. I thought you could use your rest."

"But I have to make breakfast and pack Gracie's lunch and make sure she's dressed and – "

"I've taken care of all of it. Gracie's completely ready for school. Why don't you take your shower? Breakfast'll be on the table when you get out."

She looked at him suspiciously. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Your loving and devoted husband."

As he walked through the doorframe, she called after him, "Well if that's the case, my blouse needs ironing too." She crawled out of bed and started for the bathroom. "The white one I left hanging above the ironing board."

His voice drifted back from the hallway: "I'm on it."

She shook her head as she closed the bathroom door and thought, _Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. _

**/FNL/**

Tami was tense and frustrated when she pulled into the driveway. Principal Mark Connor had kept her late today to discuss the Mr. Mackey problem. She had tried to rush the meeting, but Mark kept going over the same information again and again. She'd finally had to cut him off and tell him she really needed to get home and start dinner. Eric had gone home at least two hours before her, lucky dog. Her late start had meant traffic was worse than usual. She'd filled her car up with a litany of "C'mon now, y'all!"s during the drive home.

Tami switched off the engine and took a minute to calm herself in the still quiet of the car. She knew Gracie would want her attention as soon as she walked through the door, so she needed this moment to herself. Later, as she shut the door of her car, she hoped Eric had managed to get dinner started and that he had at least made Gracie unpack and put away her backpack.

When she opened the front door of the house, the first thing she saw beyond the foyer and in the breakfast nook were the lit candles on the table. It wasn't until she stepped into the house that she noticed the rose petals scattered in a trail on the floor, and the little note that said, "Follow me."

She dropped her satchel on the tile floor of the foyer, slid out of her high heels, and then walked in her stocking feet along the trail of petals, which led to their bedroom and then ultimately into their master bathroom. Her husband was leaning against the bathroom door frame. He was wearing those well-fitting, bluish black jeans she had once said flattered him, and he had on a forest green button-down shirt. Had she actually told him green set off his eyes, or did he just somehow know she had begun to like him in it? It was the Pioneer's color, and she never would have thought it suited him before they moved.

"Where's Gracie?" she asked.

"Dan and Eden have her. We don't have to pick her up until Saturday evening. You deserve a relaxing weekend."

"I do," she agreed.

"I've drawn you a bath."

So he was expecting bathtub sex, was he?

"Don't worry," he continued. "I won't try to join you. Just relax. I'm finishing up fixin' dinner." He stood up straight, walked over, and lowered his lips to hers. He smelled like soap and roses and his kiss was somehow soft and possessive all at once.

"What's the occasion?" she asked.

"The occasion is you," he said, pulling away. "Enjoy." He left her and headed back to the kitchen.

She followed the remainder of the trail, which led all the way to the tub. He'd lit and placed tea candles all over the vanity of the sink and the back of the toilet as well as the two back corners of the tub, and, on the floor, he'd put a wine glass filled with Chardonnay. She left the bathroom to slide out of her clothes and returned and eased down into the warm, bubbly water. She reached down, grabbed her wine glass, and lay her head back and smiled.

"Somebody apparently thinks he's getting laid sometime tonight," she said to her wine glass as she raised it to her lips. "And somebody's absolutely right."

**/FNL/ **

"We've captured the princess!" Cory grabbed Gracie by the arm and strutted her into the kitchen, Nerf gun turned inward towards her. Dan and Eden sat at the kitchen table enjoying a post-dinner glass of wine. Dan had already cleaned the dishes the kids had cleared to the sink.

"Buy my true love will rescue me!" Gracie insisted with great dramatic flare. "He will never let you get away with it!"

"I'm not your true love!" Othello shouted from the hallway just outside the kitchen. "I'll rescue you because I'm a super hero, but I'm NOT your true love!"

Dan chuckled.

"Fine!" Gracie retorted. "Then I'll just rescue myself!" She began to tug away from Cory's grip. When she'd yanked herself free, she groaned, made a face, and said, "Owwww!"

"Coriolanus!" Eden scolded her son. "You shouldn't be so rough – "

"No," Gracie said, "It's my stomach." She put a hand over tummy, groaned again, and promptly began vomiting on the kitchen floor.

**/FNL/**

Tami had just finished her last sip of wine when she noticed Eric peering around the corner of the bathroom door. "Dinner's ready," he said. "But if you want to keep relaxin' for a while - "

"No, I've had enough relaxing. The water's getting cool."

"A'ight. I'll be waiting for you. I left your robe on the back of the door."

It was the long, thick, soft, terry cloth one that fell below her knees. That would do nicely. When did she ever get to eat dinner in her robe? As she walked to the dining room she glanced at the rose petals still scattered in the hallway and on the foyer and hoped that they were fake, because real ones might stain the new off-white carpet, not that she was going to mention that to Eric, because he was clearly trying hard, and that was the sort of effort she did not want to discourage with suggestions for improvement.

She slid into the chair he'd pulled out for her at the table and waited to be served. When he put the bacon-wrapped scallops and hollandaise-dribbled asparagus in front of her, she raised an eyebrow. "You cooked this?"

"Well," he said, sitting down across from her, "I picked it up at the gourmet counter at that insane grocery store you like to go to, and I heated it up all by myself." He smiled. "Only the best for you, baby."

She laughed as she picked up her fork. "Well I appreciate it. It looks like you put a lot of thought into tonight. So much that I even forgive you for getting Principal Connor to make me work late." She looked across the table at him. "You did get him to do that, didn't you?"

"I needed more time to set up," he confessed. "Try the scallops."

**/FNL/ **

As Gracie heaved, Cory stepped backward with a look of alarm, and Dan and Eden stood up from the table. Gracie began to try to turn, and Dan insisted, calmly, "No, just finish up on the floor. We'll clean it up. Just get it all out." When she was done, he said, just as calmly, "Now let's get you cleaned up." She began to step forward to go to the bathroom, "No!" he shouted. "Don't walk _through_ it! Come back this way and around." He nodded to Eden, who led Gracie back around the table on a clean path toward the bathroom.

Later, Eden re-entered the kitchen as Dan was finishing up the final mopping of the floor. He'd cleaned with towels first, then Clorox, then water. "She's lying down," Eden told him. "I better call Tami."

"No!" Dan insisted.

Eden was taken aback by his sudden firmness. "Dan, She's going to want to know that Gracie – "

"- No! We can't call, because then Tami will just want to run and pick her up."

"Isn't that the point?" Eden asked.

"It's not like we haven't dealt with a little vomit before. Listen, my love, this wasn't just a take the kid off our hands so we can get some projects done around the house thing. Eric is planning something really big."

Eden looked confused. "A big house project?"

"No," Dan laughed. "Something…" he wiggled his eyebrows "…_romantic_."

"Oh, see, it didn't occur to me because I'm not accustomed to my husband planning big romantic surprises for me." Her lips were curved into a sarcastic smile.

Dan sighed and swished the mop forward. "That's because your husband's too busy cooking you dinner and washing your dishes and doing your laundry and homeschooling your kids. Maybe _you_ should plan a big romantic surprise for _me_."

She shook her head. "No, that's always the man's job." She stepped forward, smiled, and put a hand in Dan's hair. "You're a good friend, darling. I hope Eric appreciates that. And when he appreciates it so much that he takes Cory and O for a weekend, I just might give you a very nice surprise indeed. Even if it's not a particularly romantic one."

He drew her close with one arm. "Yeah?"

They were about to kiss when Othello leveled a Nerf machine gun at them and ordered, "Halt! No romance on the deck of the starship by order of the emperor! It's fucking forbidden!"

Eden slid away from her husband and eyed him accusingly.

As Othello disappeared from the kitchen, Dan said, "I admit I've been working on annunciation with the boys, but you can discuss the vocabulary with Eric."

"I seriously, seriously doubt Othello learned that from Coach Eric Taylor. I've never heard that man say anything more severe than damn or hell. Ever."

"Well you're a lady, darling. And he's a southern gentleman. So you wouldn't have. But boys are boys."

She turned from him and began to walk out of the kitchen. "Nice try, framing another man for your crimes."

**/FNL/**

Tami waited for Eric to finish up whatever he was doing in the basement and return to retrieve her. When he'd said he was going down there to put on some "finishing touches," she hadn't questioned him. He'd already put so much effort into this evening, that no matter what he did at this point, she was going to tell him she appreciated it, even if it was a flop.

But the basement? _Really_? The _basement_? _What_ was he thinking? It was like an episode of _Hoarders_ down there. They should have gotten rid of more in the move from Dillon, but she hadn't been able to part with Julie's abandoned things. She'd boxed them up and they'd gone straight to the unfinished basement here, as had all of Eric's old football trophies, and Tami's pre-Gracie clothes, which she had been _sure_ she would get back into within a year of the birth, but still hadn't _quite_ managed to fit into comfortably six years later. She was close, though. She was _this_ close.

Maybe he had managed to clear a space, somehow. After all, he'd been down there three nights this week, pounding away at those metal shelves he had said he was going to assemble a year ago, and shuffling stuff around. But even if he had cleared a large enough area for relaxing and making love, there was no carpet down there. It was nothing but a cement floor. And it would be frigid, especially considering it was still technically winter. The basement typically felt fifteen degrees colder than the rest of the house.

Alone at the table, she shook her head and laughed. God, how she loved him. She did. She truly did. But the basement?

**/FNL/**

"Can I have dessert now?" Gracie asked. She'd just wandered out of the room where Eden had laid her down earlier and was back in the now clean kitchen.

"Sorry, princess," Dan said, as he leaned back against the kitchen counter, "but you really shouldn't eat anything ten minutes after you threw up."

"Please? You said we'd have dessert after dinner."

Dan chuckled. "Glad you're feeling better already, but you have to wait half an hour. Then you can try some water."

"Cory and O are eating dessert!" She pointed to the boys, who were shoveling ice cream into their mouths from where they sat at the kitchen table.

"Cory and O didn't just paint my kitchen floor from the inside out. Sorry, Gracie."

The little girl frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

**/FNL/ **

"Oh my God, Eric!" Tami gasped.

"You like this, baby? Tell me you like it."

He'd just lead her downstairs and she'd seen what he'd done with the basement. He'd put up three sets of metal shelves against the far wall and organized everything, absolutely _everything_. It looked like a neat, orderly storage room now instead of a junk pile. The floor was entirely clear, except for some folding chairs and folding table in front of the shelves.

The small, extra fireplace they had never once used since moving here had been cleaned and was now lit. On the floor in front of it, he had spread out an oriental rug that had previously been rolled up and poised against a corner wall, and on top of that he had lain the mattress from the futon in the office. That he had made up with soft, warm blankets and multiple pillows. In addition to the fire place, light came from a black metal candelabra filled with votive candles, a candelabra she'd completely forgotten they had, and which he must have found while cleaning up.

"I love it," she said, walking to the mattress.

"I thought about the office. Maybe the chair or desk or something like that. But I figured…with Gracie gone …I figured you'd want us to take our time. And we just did the living room at New Year's. You wanted to mix it up, so…"

He looked at her, seeking approval.

"It's a beautiful surprise," she said, and meant it. Her feet were at the mattress now, and they were bare and a little chilly, so she climbed in under the covers.

"Since you've just got the robe, mind if I?" He pointed to his shirt. She shook her head and he took off his shirt and jeans and, wearing only his boxers, crawled under the blankets next to her.

"What's this?" she asked, drawing out a book he had left under the covers.

**/FNL/ **

"It's like it never happened at all," Eden said, shaking her head from where she sat on the living room sofa. She watched Gracie run after Cory and O. This time little Ms. Taylor was the one wielding a Nerf gun. She shot a volley of soft, orange bullets over the banister of the staircase as the boys slid on their butts with a thud-thud-thud down the stairs.

"Kids are like that sometimes," Dan replied. "Maybe it was a fifteen minute bug. Or maybe she'll vomit again in the middle of the night. Let's just go with the flow."

Eden slid close to her husband and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Shouldn't we be getting them ready for bed at some point?" she asked.

Dan shrugged and turned on the television to a documentary about the history of firearms. "It's Friday and they're having fun. Let's give them a little more time before we insist on slumber and the subsequent screams of protest ensue."

**/FNL/**

Like Tami, Eric lay on his side, an elbow down on the mattress, his head propped up on his hand, facing her. He watched her page through the book. "I thought, you know…" he said, "if you'd just point to the position you wanted, it would be a hell of a lot easier than me guessing. I don't want another supply closet style blunder."

She chortled. They'd had a book something like this when they were first married. It had been given to Tami by a college friend at her twenty-first birthday party, after she and Eric had been married for a little under a year. Eric had been mortified when she opened the gift. Their friends had taken great pleasure in his discomfort, and the book had eventually disappeared in one of their many moves. Neither had rushed out to replace it, since over half of the positions they'd attempted had proved to be physically impractical anyway.

She pointed to an illustration just below a description on page 67. "You remember this? We tried this about two years after we were married."

"And snapped the kitchen chair."

"The wood was so thin on those things. They must have been from the early 70's. We got them from my mom, remember? I don't think they were meant to withstand…" she laughed. "And you tried to break my fall and got that goose egg. Remember?"

"Hard to forget."

She flipped a page. "This requires a dresser. So maybe when we're not in the basement."

He turned and glanced back at the shelves. "No," she said. "Too far from the fireplace."

She settled on the next page for a moment. "Missionary style. Do they really needed to illustrate that?" she asked. "And why is it in the _middle_ of the book?"

"It's a very underrated position. I'm told it's the most efficient way for a woman to achieve orgasm. Or is that when she's on top of the man? When is it most efficient?"

"Hon, frankly, it's most efficient when we're alone."

"Thanks. It's good to feel useful."

"Well, fortunately for you, there are things I value more than efficiency." She turned another page. "We tried this one when we first moved to Macedonia."

He craned his neck. She turned the book around to give him a better view. He shook his head. "I don't remember that."

"It hurt," she said. "We stopped halfway and you hopped around the bedroom cursing and trying to work out a charlie horse. You've probably blocked it out of your mind."

She flipped through the pages, shaking her head, laughing, and then, "Oh God!" She turned the book around towards him.

"I was a football player, Tami. Never a gymnast."

She turned the book back towards herself. "I'm beginning to think maybe there's a reason we've settled into the habit of relying on just two or three positions."

"Oh, come on. We rotate through at least four or five."

She laughed. "Rotate? Is that what you do, Coach? Rotate through the plays?" She knew all of his smiles well - the fake ones, the sardonic ones, the happy ones, the nervous ones – but this one, the self-deprecating smile that curved his lips now – was among her favorites. She leaned in and kissed the tip of his nose.

When she drew back, he nodded toward the book. "Tell me how best to please you tonight," he said.

She returned her attention to the book. She could feel him watching her as she turned the pages. Sometimes she smiled; sometimes she shook her head with disapproval, and sometimes she murmured with interest, but the whole time he watched her.

"Tami?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, hon," she replied instinctively, with no particular feeling.

"And I'm still _**in**_ love with you."

She stopped looking at the book and looked instead at him. This was not a routine exchange of I love you's.

"It surprises me sometimes," he said. "I mean, I knew I'd always love you, be faithful, and stay married to you, I just didn't think that after all these years, I'd still so often feel …like this. This way you make me feel."

She closed the book.

"I've always done fairly well at what I've tried," he said, " because I've been determined to. Because I've worked at it. And I was determined to work at this marriage too. And I have. We both have. And marriage can be hard work, and sometimes ours has been. But there's also a part of it…a part of it that's always come easy. A part of it that's just so…natural. A part of it that's just dumb luck. I don't know how else to put it. I'm so damn lucky to have you. It could have happened some other way…with some other woman…and it might have worked out okay…but it wouldn't be like this. I got _you_. Somehow…I'm with _you_."

She put a hand on his cheek. "We _are_ good together," she said. "Aren't we?" She kissed him and then drew back. She placed a hand on the closed book. "You know what I want tonight?"

"What?"

"I just want you to make love to me. Face to face, side by side, as slowly as you can. And I want you to whisper sweet nothings and tell me how much you love me. And I don't give a damn how conventional that is." She picked up the book and tossed it dramatically away.

She hadn't meant for it to land in the fireplace, but it did. It landed with a thud and a quick _whoosh_ of fire, and it dampened the flame for a moment, but then the fire began to lick at it and grow again, to curl the pages as they turned to ash. "Oh, Lord," she said, covering her mouth, her chest heaving with laughter.

"I paid good money for that book, Tami."

"I didn't mean…I just wanted to toss it aside and say we don't need it tonight. I didn't mean to completely burn it up…"

He laughed and slid closer to her and kissed her repeatedly. One of her hands found its way into his hair, and one of her legs hooked over his hip. "Face to face?" he asked. "Side by side? Slowly?" She nodded. "I think I can manage that." He lightly took hold of the edge of the tie on her robe and began to pull it loose, little by little.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Tami awoke shivering. The fire had gone out. She put her hand on Eric's shoulder and jostled him. "Hon, I think we better go sleep in our own bed."

He grunted and stirred and then rose. "Get your pillow," he said. They made their way up the basement stairs. He flicked on the hall light, and they walked past the office on the way to their bedroom. She glanced in and observed the empty frame of the futon, from which he'd removed the mattress.

"Thinking about trying out that thing in that office chair?" he asked with a smile. "It's sturdier than those old kitchen chairs were."

Tami laughed. "It's the middle of the night, hon." She turned and kissed him. "But thank you for tonight. It was perfect."

Eric kissed her in return, and as their kiss deepened, she dropped her pillow. He dropped his and put his hands on her hips.

She broke away, breathing hard. He pressed his forehead against hers and said, "You want me."

"That's bold of you."

"But it's true, isn't it?" Still holding her by the hips, he pulled her into the office as he walked backward. They stumbled into the chair. She laughed, but when Eric began kissing her neck and slipping his hands inside her robe, her laughter soon faded to moans.

Her breath warm in his ear, she whispered, "This would be a good time to talk dirty to me."

**/FNL/ **

"Ewwww. _No._ Backtrack," Tami insisted.

"I'm not very good at this. Just tell me what you want me to say."

Tami sighed and slid off of Eric and the chair. She leaned back against the desk opposite him, her robe fallen open. "It doesn't work that way."

"Then write me a script and I'll use it next time. Come on, Tami! You keep changing the rules!"

She smiled affectionately. "There are no rules, Eric."

"Well, your preferences then."

"I guess I should be grateful you're not a natural at this. I think it's because you're so sweet at heart."

"No I'm not," he said, shaking his head, "I'm not at all sweet. I'm bad. And I'm dirty. I'm very dirty."

She laughed. She stepped forward, took his hand, and tugged. "Come on, let's go to our own bed."

"You're not in the mood anymore?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I didn't say that. I just said let's go to our own bed. That chair keeps swiveling all over the place. You're going to get another goose egg."

As they left the study, she paused in the living room and glanced at the recliner, and then at him. "We could make that work," he said.

**/FNL/**

In the morning, Tami awoke gradually, stretched, and then lay on her side and watched Eric sleep. She knew he would eventually sense himself being watched and awake, which he did, saying, "That's a little creepy, babe."

Tami rolled onto her stomach and kissed his forehead. "I want breakfast," she said. "Did you plan breakfast too?"

"Tami, baby, there's no Gracie this morning. There's no school. There's no reason for us to get out of this bed at 8 AM."

"Except that I'm hungry." She patted him. "I'll go fix us something and let you sleep a little more. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't ruining any romantic breakfast plan of yours."

"Romantic breakfast? Is that even possible?"

"It's very possible."

He put the pillow over his head to block out the sunlight streaming in through the window. "I have no plans," came his muted voice. "But we're Gracie-free until 6 PM, so think about what you want to do this afternoon."

"I want to see an adult movie," she said.

He slid the pillow off of his face and looked at her with one open eye and one raised eyebrow. "An _adult_ movie?"

She rolled her eyes. "You know adult movie doesn't mean what it _used_ to mean before we had kids. I want to see something that's not animated. You know, sort of like when you say, 'When we were _single_,' and you really mean when we were already a couple but we didn't have kids yet." Julie and Gracie hadn't just changed their lives. Those girls had changed their lexicon. "Maybe something at the Cinema de Arte," Tami concluded.

She'd been trying to expose herself to more "culture" since moving to the east coast, although she still didn't have any trouble admitting when she didn't like something. The thing was, she'd found she actually enjoyed certain plays and concerts and movies she had never thought to watch, or had been unable to attend, when they were living in Dillon. Not the sort of overly pretentious foreign films Julie had tried to get them to watch on family movie nights, films Tami suspected her daughter only pretended to like, but films that went a little deeper than Tami's usual fare of _Overboard_, _Fletch_, and _When Harry Met Sally_.

Eric, for his part, tolerated this broadening of horizons and occasionally accompanied her. He'd refused to go see any musicals, but he'd taken her to the theater to see a Shakespeare play, the most masculine one he could find, _Coriolanus_ (at Eden's recommendation), and once he'd gotten used to the language, which had taken him a good twenty or thirty minutes, he'd actually liked it. He refused to try the opera, but he'd taken her to the symphony, and she'd only had to poke him to keep him from dozing off once.

"As long as it doesn't have subtitles." He put the pillow back over his head and muttered, "I don't like to read my movies."

Tami rolled out of bed and threw on some clothes. "Pancakes, sugar?"

"And bacon."

"I think we're out of bacon."

"Then sausage," he said.

"I think we're out of sausage. I can grill you up some steak. Steak and eggs?"

"Yes, please," he murmured.

When she got to the kitchen, she decided to call Eden, just to check in. She knew her friend would be up, because Gracie never slept past 7 AM, even on Saturdays, and Eden had often complained that the boys were the same way.

Tami announced she was just checking in, thanked Eden for taking in Gracie, and asked how things were going. Eden replied, "Everyone is having a great time. Just in case Gracie mentions it, you should know she was a little bit sick last night, absolutely nothing serious, and she's doing just fine this morning."

"Did she have a temperature?"

"She's doing great, Tami."

"Did she throw up?"

"Not a symptom to be seen this morning. She's all full of energy and ready to go shooting with Dan and the boys."

"Ready to…what now?"

There was a long pause at the other end of the line and then Eden's cautious voice, "Eric didn't tell you?"

"Shooting?"

There was no hint of a question in Eden's voice now. It was solemn. "He didn't tell you."

"No, he most certainly did not."

"Well, they're just going to a private range on some farm land. One of Dan's friends has a farm outside the city. They'll just be using BB guns, and they'll be shooting aluminum cans, and Dan will be there, and you know as a rifle coach that he's very concerned about safety, and – "

"-Gracie is six years old."

"Well," Eden murmured. "So are our boys."

"Dan is obsessed with those guns."

"Okay, Tami, honestly? I didn't understand the gun thing either when I first met him. I just thought it was some foolish testosterone thing. But he's taught me it's more than that. It's about patience and self-discipline and defense of the weak and…well, my husband can be very convincing."

Tami laughed. That sounded all-too familiar. "Okay. I trust Dan. But I still can't believe Eric didn't tell me. That omission _**has**_ to be addressed."

"Tami? Didn't he just do something rather special for you last night?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"Then my entirely unsolicited advice is this—let it go."

Tami didn't reply.

"You're not going to let it go, are you?" Eden asked.

"Come on, you wouldn't either. Not right away, anyway. Of course I'll let it go eventually. But the truth is Eric's kind of cute when he's desperately trying to defend himself."

Eden laughed. "Okay, then. You have fun with that."

**/FNL/**

Tami had just set the kitchen table and put on all the breakfast foods when Eric stumbled in wearing his gray sweat pants and white t-shirt (inside out), his hair rumpled, and two fingers working the sleep dust out of his left eye. "Is there any coffee?" he asked.

She pointed to the pot on the granite countertop in the corner next to the sink.

"Thanks," he muttered as he poured himself a cup. He took a leisurely sip, closed his eyes, and sighed. Tami made sure that when he opened those hazel beauties, she was standing _right_ in front of him.

He jolted and made almost the same sound he'd made this past Halloween, when Gracie had handed him the big hollowed-out book she wanted to use to hold the candy, and he'd opened it, and it had cackled.

He took a step back now, but he was only one step from the counter to begin with, so now his back was pressed against it.

"Eric," Tami said sternly. "I think we need to have a conversation."

He put his coffee cup down on the counter. "About?"

"About why you think it's acceptable to make serious decisions regarding our daughter's safety without first discussing the issue with me."

"Did you call Eden this morning? Is this about Dan taking the kids BB gun shooting?"

Tami looked at him severely and forced her lips into a straight line even though they really wanted to curve. He'd started to squirm already, and it was only going to get more entertaining from here on out. "No," she said. "This is about you not respecting my contribution to the partnership. It's also about your judgment in thinking it's acceptable to put a loaded firearm into the hands of our six-year-old daughter."

He swallowed and raised his chin slightly. Tami had him in a corner now, literally. He pressed his hands together in that way of his, almost like a gesture of prayer, and then lowered them, still pressed together, until they pointed horizontally at her.

Tami knew what was about to happen. He was going to offer one of his adorable, three-part apologies. Soon enough, his eyes would soften and he'd get that look, like a sad little, pleading puppy dog, and he'd say, "I'm sorry. I regret not informing you. I apologize for my lack of consideration," moving his prayerful hands up and down with each of the three points of the apology. Or maybe he'd make it sweet and short and simply say, "I'm sorry. I was wrong. I apologize." Or maybe he'd focus the apology on her: "You're right. You're entitled to feel injured. Please find it in your heart to forgive me."

Tami was ready for any of those possibilities when his hands came down. What she was not ready for was what he said.

"Tami," he said - hands up - "I'm sorry" - hands down - "but I regret to inform you" - hands up - "that you" - hands down and shaken - "are being absolutely ridiculous." Then his hands came apart, and he seized the handle of his coffee mug and walked around her to the kitchen table.

When she'd managed to close her mouth, Tami sat down at the table opposite him. He'd already dribbled hot sauce on his eggs and was in the midst of cutting his steak.

"Excuse me?" she said. She said it in that way that usually got his attention, but he just put a bite of steak into his mouth and looked straight at her, not flinching. "Excuse me?" she repeated as he began to chew. "I'm being ridiculous?" He wasn't very cute anymore. "_I'm_ being ridiculous?" She actually wasn't the least bit upset with him four minutes ago, but now she was getting just a little bit livid. "_You_ say yes to putting a gun in our daughter's hands, don't tell me, and _I'm_ the one being ridiculous?"

He swallowed and ran his tongue inside his mouth along his teeth. "Pretty much." He pointed to the plate with his fork. "This is good steak, babe. You know how to grill it up just right." He winked at her. _Winked_ at her. The nerve!

"Eric, hon, let me ask you something. Was the sex so good last night that it drained all the blood from your head?"

He smiled. "It was pretty damn good wasn't it?" He laughed. And kept laughing, like a giddy school boy who can't stop himself.

Tami laughed too, one short burst, because it was catching, like a yawn, but then she silenced herself. "Hey, I'm angry over here!"

His laughter became a subdued chuckle. "I know," he said. "But you're kind of cute when you're angry." Then his tongue came out between his teeth, and he laughed while biting it. He drew in his tongue and went back to cutting his steak. "I came to the kitchen right after you left the bedroom, but you were on the phone, so I thought I should go back to bed for a bit."

Tami shook her head. "And you overheard my conversation with Eden?"

He nodded. He lifted his eyes up from the plate and smiled at her. "I've got your number now."

"Don't think this means there aren't times you legitimately need to apologize. Because there are times. Plenty of times. And actually, you really shouldn't have given Dan permission to take Gracie without talking to me first."

He picked up his coffee mug. "Come on. How could I ask without ruining the surprise I had for you?"

"Well you didn't have to ask me yesterday. You could have just told Dan you would ask me this morning, after I'd already been surprised, and then called to let him know yes or no."

"Huh." He sipped. "Yeah. That would have been a simple and practical solution." He shrugged. "Too bad I didn't think of it." He held his cup out towards her. "See, that's why I married you, Tami, babe. You're the brains of this operation."

"Oh, good Lord," she muttered before picking up her fork and digging it into her eggs.

**/FNL/**

"Okay, Gracie, first thing," Dan said, pointing to the BB gun he'd lain down on a wooden table erected on a field of grass stretching a few yards to a series of posts on which sit several aluminum soda cans. "The gun is always loaded."

"No it's not."

"Rather, I mean for safety purposes you have to _treat_ the gun as though it's always loaded, because you can never be sure."

"Yes you can."

Othello and Cory stood a few feet off, the younger twin shaking his head and the older one whistling.

"Gracie!" Dan demanded. "Repeat after me—_the gun is always loaded_."

"Except when it's not."

**/FNL/**

Eric leaned over to Tami in his movie theatre seat and whispered, "This is subtitled."

"I know, but after what you pulled this morning, you _deserve_ subtitles. You're going to sit through this entire poignant French drama."

Currently, they were one of only three couples in the theatre, and there was no one in the row either directly in front of them or directly behind them. He reached into the popcorn bucket, took out a single kernel, tossed it into the air, and caught it in his mouth. "Stop that!" Tami hissed.

Just then the camera began to scan upwards over the body of a woman, beginning with her bright red high heels, up over her shapely legs, "Good night!" Eric said, and up, up, up, "Oh, she has a face."

Tami slapped him on the shoulder.

"You picked the movie," he reminded her.

"No commentary from the peanut gallery."

**/FNL/**

Dan sighed. "Okay. Now I've showed how to put the BB's in." He patted the gun that lay on its side on the wooden bench. "When you're transporting your gun, though, you want to take the ammunition out and carry them separately in the case because state and local laws vary, and you don't want a loaded gun in your car."

Gracie put one little hand on her hip and cocked her head at him. "I thought you said a gun was always loaded."

Dan closed his eyes. "Cory!" he shouted. "You're up, son."

**/FNL/**

Another piece of popcorn went up in the air and came down in Eric's mouth. Tami sighed. "Fine, if you're going to be like this, let's just go."

"I'm watching," he said. "I'm being quiet. I'm just eating my popcorn."

"No," she said, "Fine. Let's go."

"No, I've stopped," Eric replied, putting the popcorn on the floor and sitting on his hands. "I'll be a very good boy for the rest of the movie."

"You're bored. We might as well go."

"You want to see the movie, I'll watch the movie."

"I don't want to force you—"

Eric chuckled. "Wait a minute. You want to go. _You_ want to go! You're bored to tears by this pretentious swill and you just don't want to admit it!"

Tami bit her bottom lip and shook her head. "I just really don't want to force _you_."

"Uh-huh. Then we're staying. Besides, I kind of the lady in red. When she's not discussing French politics with that communist priest."

**/FNL/**

"We call this prone position," Dan said, showing Gracie how to lie face down on the ground and grasp the rifle. He moved the stand-alone posts a little closer for Gracie's first try, but he still didn't expect her to hit anything. "It's the easiest and most accurate position. The ground provides extra stability. Now what you want to do is put your finger lightly on that trigger, don't shoot yet, because you're going to want to pull slowly and smooth – wait!"

There was a woosh sound and a plink as a can wobbled and then fell off the post.

"Good shot, Gracie!" Cory yelled. "She got one her first time! It took me two trips to the range before I got my first can down!"

"I think she just got lucky," Dan said. "Although girls do tend to be better shots on average than boys. They just don't show as much interest and don't practice as often, so…Good God, Gracie!" There was a clunk as a BB hit another can and it, too, fell. "If you Taylors are still living here in nine years, I'm going to have to talk your father into sending you to Grant High. Because Pemberton doesn't have a good enough rifle team for you."

**/FNL/**

"Oh, okay!" Tami exclaimed. "I'm bored. Let's go."

"You know what would be more interesting?" Eric asked on the way out of the theatre.

"A quickie?"

"_You're_ suggesting it?"

"Three hours of freedom left before we have to pick up Gracie," she said, taking his hand and laying her head on his shoulder as they walked back to the car.

"Then there's no reason to be quick about it." He opened the car door for her.

"Why thank you, Coach Taylor."

As she slid in he bent down and said, "I love you, Mrs. Taylor. This has been the best weekend I can remember having in years."

When he got into his side of the car, she said, "It's almost worth having to coral Cory and Othello next weekend."

"What?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you? I agreed we'd take them off Dan and Eden's hands. Friday evening is laser tag, and Saturday we're all going to Chuck E Cheese together."

Eric turned the key in the ignition. "This better be a damn good last three hours."

**THE END**


End file.
